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When I was researching hotels, I found that a TON people seemed to always have a problem with staff service. Actually, the more I read them the more it seemed that Macau’s hotel industry didn’t really give a rats ass about customer service. So, after consulting TripAdvisor, I narrowed it down to two places I wanted to stay at: Fousada de Mong Ha and StarWorld Hotel. Unfortunately, the Pousada de Mong Ha was booked for the entire month, so I opted for the StarWorld Hotel.
Let me just say… The StarWorld. Is. The. Best. Hotel. For. Your. Buck!!!! This super chic and amazing hotel and casino was an amazing experience! Not only were the staff amazingly nice and super helpful, but this hotel is more than reasonably priced. For $130 USD a night, we had a gorgeous and super spacious room overlooking Macau. I thought the room and service we got was easily worth $300 a night (not that I’m complaining). We were definitely impressed! I highly recommend this hotel. They even have bizarrely tall and gorgeous women greet you in every room. We weren’t sure what they did other then look stunning and make you feel bad that you just ate a bazillion egg tarts. But, hey, they were definitely gorgeous.
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Part One: Macau: Walking through the Suburbs of Macau from Temple to Church
We got up early a super rainy morning to finish our walking tour. So unfortunately, a lot of these pictures are really dreary looking! Oh, how I wish I was better with photoshop!
Macau Walking Tour (Part II):
1. Largo Do Senado: This town square is also known as the “Square of the Senate”. It’s a really gorgeous town square surrounded with very distinctive Portuguese architecture. It’s a great place to start.
2. Church of St. Dominic & Macau Cathedral: The Church of St. Dominic is gorgeous with stain class windows and icons of Jesus and Mary. The definitely represents the strong Catholic presents in Macau. The Macau Cathedral, on the other hand, is not as impressive, but it’s prime location is worthy of a quick stop. 
3. Ruins of the Church of St. Paul: The most famous tourist destination in Macau is the Ruins of the Church of St. Paul. Originally built in the seventeen hundreds, this Jesuit church burnt down in the nineteen hundreds and all that’s left is this amazing facade. We were able to climb to the to top and catch a breathtaking view of Macau.
Additional Reading and Resources:
Ruins of St. Paul- Macau Travel Tips
Macau Walking Tour: Historical Churches near Senado Square- Asiahotels.com
:: :: :: :: :: :: One of the highlights of my trip to Macau was a simple walking tour through the suburbs of Macau. With my Lonely Planet guide in hand and their suggested walking tour, I had a fantastic time walking through the streets from landmark to landmark and through narrow sidewalks where parents were walking their kids home.
Stops on Our Walking Tour of Macau Peninsula:
1. A Ma Temple: We actually skewed off Lonely Planet’s perfectly planned out itinerary and ended up taking our time (re: two days) to finish their itinerary. We started off at A-Ma Temple, which is a smallish Chinese temple dedicated to A-Ma or Tin Hau. While it’s not the most impressive temple I’ve seen, it’s interesting to see how the temple is incorporated into the side of a hill.
2. Moorish Barracks & Largo Do Lilau: Built in 1874, this old, beautiful building looks like a millionaire’s home in Portugal. However, it actually houses the maritime police and can pass for a modern day home with it’s high ceilings and gorgeous black lanterns. Near by, the Largo Do Lilau is in a beautiful public square with old trees and the famous fountain. If you drink from the fountain, you’re destined to return to Macau.
3. Church of St. Augustine & Leal Senado: Unfortunately, we weren’t able to go into the Church of St. Augustine, but that really didn’t stop us from taking in it’s beautiful architecture. One of the beautiful things about Macau is the juxtaposition between bright, colorful Portuguese style buildings, older buildings that the locals live in, and the narrow hilly roads.
By this time, it was already late in the day, so we decided to head back to our hotel to clean up for dinner. Luckily, we were able to walk to downtown from here and grab a Portuguese egg tart before going back.
Up next: Largo do Senado, Church of St. Dominic, Macau Cathedral, Lau Kau Mansion, Monte Fort, Ruins of the Church of St. Paul
Resources and Reading Material:
A Ma Temple – Macau Heritage Net
He Who Drinks From the Lilau Never Forgets Macau -Articles Base
Macau Moorish Barracks- Ola Macau Guide
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Traveling tips for getting around in Macau:
1. Language Barriers: Don’t expect to be able to speak English to everyone in Macau, including cab drivers. They speak Cantonese in Macau and I was able to get by with my limited Mandarin, but we definitely still had a lot of language barriers. So before I headed out to the cab line at the hotel, I’d stop off at the conceirge and asked her to write my destination out in Chinese. It was much easier to hand the driver a note then to get dropped off in the middle of nowhere… which also happened.
2. Roads: Considering that the streets signs, like Rua do Almirante Sergio, were in Portuguese, I made the horribly bad mistake of assuming the cab drivers would know where I wanted to go. Wrong again! Despite having Portuguese street signs, the signs also have Chinese names, which are not as apparent to me. I’m not sure what the point of having Portuguese street names are if the cab drivers don’t use them. But that’s a mystery for another day. After awhile, I just started telling cab drivers to drop me off big casinos, and I’d walk to wherever I needed to go.
3. Currency: Macau and HK dollars run in almost the same denomination. Example, 25 HK dollars is close to 25 Macau dollars. Yay! No need for currency conversion in your head. HK dollars is widely accepted in Macau. So if you’re coming from HK, you can use them easily. At big hotels, if you use HK dollars, you may receive your change in HK dollars. In smaller stores, you will probably receive it in Macau dollars.
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I’m back! It was extremely tiring to travel from DC to Houston (layover) to SF to LA back to SF to Narita (layover) to Hong Kong to Macau to Hong Kong to Taipei to Hong Kong to Narita (layover) to SF to Houston (layover) then FINALLY back to DC. Wow. Looking at all those trips makes my head spin. Needless to say, my jet lag is HORRIBLE. Uh, can you say cold pizza at 4am? But, I’m BACK! and I had a ton of great adventures to share!
Surprisingly, one of the highlights to my trip was my 1.5 day trip to Macau! Considering that everyone who heard I was going described Macau as a dirty version of Vegas… uhhh.. SO not so! okay, maybe a little, but I had a great time! But first off…
How to Get to Macau from Hong Kong via Sea:
1. How to get there by sea: Getting around in Hong Kong is really easy, so I wasn’t that surprised that getting from Hong Kong to Macau would be any different.
- TurboJet, New World First Ferry, Cotai Strip are a few of the ferry companies that will take you by sea. My experiences are with TurboJet, which I found to be really easy and runs almost like a 2nd rate plane boarding. Otherwise, buy ticket and 20 minutes before you board the ship. Pretty simple.
2. Costs: For appoximately $20 USD, you can book a ticket online or at the Shun Tak Centre in Hong Kong (MTR: Sheung Wan Station). If you use your Visa, you do get a little bit of a discount.
3. Standby: After seeing everything and eating everything we wanted to eat, we decided to head back to the Macau Ferry Terminal early to see if we can go standby back to Hong Kong. Apparently this is a very popular idea as there were lines and lines of people trying to do the same thing! Luckily Turbo Jet doesn’t charge a change fee and they basically have a ship sail out every 30 minutes. Horrah!
Additional Reading and Resources:
:: :: :: :: :: :: I’m just about to start my crazy holiday travels. After a quick stop over in CA for Christmas with the family, The BF and I are heading to Hong Kong to attend a wedding on New Years Eve (party included)! Since we’ve both been there before, we thought it’d be a great idea to head over to Macau for day or so.
Macau is considered the Vegas of Asia. It’s annual revenue is/or already has exceeded Vegas. Personally, I’m not much of a gambler, so I’m more excited to see the old Portuguese buildings and sample the Portuguese and Macanese food. Macanese food is SO great. Because it’s so heavy, I’d liken it to soul food.
Planned places to eat in Macau:
1. Portugues-style Egg-Custard Tarts: If you’ve ever had the Cantonese version of the egg tarts, you’d LOVE the Portuguese-style egg tarts. It’s slightly bigger, juicier, and burnt on the top. One of the most famous bakeries to visit is Lord Stow’s Cafe. His rival, Margaret’s Cafe e Nata, is his ex-wife’s shop. I think there’s a good chance I’m going to sample both!
2. Pork Chop Buns: Another Macau snack is the pork chop buns. Basically, it’s like a pork chop slider. Tai Lei Loi Kei, is supposedly the best place for these. Since they sell a very limited amount, people start to queue up by 3pm for these buns. They sell out by 4 or 5pm.
3. Crab Porridge- After doing a few hours of Macau foodie research, I came across Seng Cheong Crab Porriage. Some bloggers have mentioned that after doing the foodie tour listed above, they were surprised to find that they most enjoyed the crab porridge at Seng Cheong! They also do crab curry, but I’m not much of a curry person.
Addresses (good luck finding it on a map!)
Lord Stow’s Cafe – 9 Largo do Matadouro
Margaret’s Cafe e Nata- Gum Loi Building, Rua Alm. Costal Cabral (Along Avenida D. Joao IV near the Sinatra Hotel)
Tai Lei Loi Kei- Largo Governador Tamagnini Barbosa 18, Taipa. (Near Cunha bus station)
Seng Cheong Crab Porriage – 28-30 Rua da Cunha, Taipa Island
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Hong Kong is the most efficient city I’ve ever been to. For sure, there are other cities (San Francisco, New York, etc.) where the moment you get off the plane, you can just about get to any location in that city without getting into a car. However, Hong Kong just takes it to another level in my opinion because there are more than 1 option of public transportation to get to all the places you want to go.
1. By Rail – there are 2 main rail systems, which are actually connected into 1, the MTR. If you click on that map to enlarge it, you can see that a visitor can leave the airport on the MTR system and go just about anywhere in Hong Kong, including the doorsteps of Shenzhen, China, where you can board trains that will take you as far as Beijing! The trains are very clean (no bums) and were never late when I was there for over 2 weeks. It’s one of only 2 rail systems in the world that is profitable and does not require government subsidies in order to operate, and there are trains that leave each station in a matter of a few minutes. On top of all that, the more suburban parts of Hong Kong were actually built in and around these stations in a cluster of high rise apartments and shops in ways in which you can leave the station and walk to your home while being covered from the elements at all times. Efficiency at its finest.
2. By Ferry/Hovercraft – Because Hong Kong is an island surrounded by other islands and ports, traveling on water makes a lot of sense. But it’s really amazing how easily accessible everything is, and yes, there are many ferry operators. Companies like TurboJet and New World operate out of multiple ports around Hong Kong and take passengers in and around Hong Kong/Kowloon, Shenzhen, Shekou, and of course, Macau, the Las Vegas of Asia. You can hop on the MTR to a stop with a ferry terminal, such as the one at the Shun Tak Centre, with luggage in hand, walk into the building, buy a round trip ticket and take the 1-hour ferry ride to Macau. Imagine a Saturday morning where you get up and feel like going to Vegas; if you were in the US, you are basically assed out, unless you live near Vegas, or settle for the local Indian casino. If you were in Hong Kong, however, you could be in Macau in a couple of hours and be back the same night to take your friends out to dinner with what you won (or ask them to take you out because you lost).
3. By Bus – This of course is the stable of public transportation in most cities around the world and Hong Kong is no exception. What I found amazing is the different variety of buses they have available. There are many profitable bus operators such as: The Kowloon Motor Bus Co., Citybus and New Lantao Bus, which were all fine and got me back to my friend’s place at 5am in the morning after a long night out. They go basically anywhere you need to go, even to places not very close by the MTR stations. To keep efficient, they will not stop at a designated spot unless someone requests the driver to do so. What I find amazing is that there are also these ‘mini buses’ that run around the city. They fit about 10 people, and it’s just first come, first serve. Where there are bus stops, there will probably be a mini bus stop as well, so if your normal bus hasn’t arrived, you can just jump on the mini bus and go where you need to go for cheap. Amazing…
There are also taxis readily available so if you really need to get somewhere fast, that option is still there. Hong Kong also caters to the rich by offering helicopter rides. There are even those cabled lifts like the ones you see at ski resorts (except it’s enclosed) and the peak tramway, which takes you to the top of Hong Kong. The only thing I didn’t see were rickshaws, probably because they’re not efficient enough.
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Wanderus - Travel Tips for the Traveling Wanderlust 